admission – Newshttp://www.bates.edu/news
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 21:39:16 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Quotes heard during admission decisions — and what they meanhttp://www.bates.edu/news/2016/04/08/inside-admission-decisions-2020/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2016/04/08/inside-admission-decisions-2020/#commentsFri, 08 Apr 2016 12:00:10 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=100319In their deliberations, the Bates Admission deans seek to answer two overarching and linked questions: Is this student right for Bates? And is Bates right for this student?]]>

During the winter months, the Bates Admission team gathered in Lindholm House to review the 5,300-plus applications for the Class of 2010. (Sarah Crosby/Bates College)

After several visits to this year’s Regular Decision admission committee sessions in Lindholm House, and hours of discussions, deliberations, and votes, we have two major takeaways.

First, there are do’s and there are don’ts when it comes to applying to Bates (and most other selective liberal arts colleges).

Second, the Bates Admission deans seek to answer, to the best of their abilities, two overarching questions: Is this student right for Bates? And is Bates right for this student?

To answer that huge question, they rely on a veritable flowchart of questions: Will she thrive academically? What’s his potential? How will he grow? Will she contribute to our community in dynamic ways? And, importantly, does she want Bates?

Here’s what we heard, and here’s what it means.

This year, applications for admission arrived from Maine, Minnesota, and Mississippi — not to mention Malawi, Malaysia, and Maldives — and from every other U.S. state except South Dakota, and from 92 additional countries around the world.

All told, Bates received 5,356 applications to the Class of 2020. Of that grand total, several hundred were reviewed during two rounds of Early Decision. The balance, some 4,900 Regular Decision applications, were reviewed and decided upon in early March.

Ultimately, the goal of the 10-member Admission Committee’s decision-making is to enroll a class of approximately 500 first-year students come fall.

Here’s what we heard, and here’s what it means:

“Great candidate for Bonner.”

A Bates sports coach recently said, “I’m not looking for a player who can play. I’m looking for a player who makes an impact.”

That applies to what the Bates Admission deans are seeking in every candidate. They look for evidence that a candidate can make contributions to Bates. In this case, a dean notes that a student with a track record of community engagement would be a good fit for the college’s Bonner Leader Program, overseen by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

“So what is the rigor, though?”

“We know that the best predictor of academic success at Bates is the high school transcript,” says Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Committee shorthand requesting specific metrics of a prospect’s academic record — specifically the strength of curriculum, which at Bates nearly always means their high school transcript.

Bates has a test-optional admission policy, meaning students are not required to submit SAT or ACT scores to apply.

“Students who submit scores at the point of application, and those who do not, perform almost precisely the same at Bates,” Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger says.

“We know that the best predictor of academic success at Bates is the high school transcript.”

“Do folks know what they want to do? All those for admit?”

If you were asked to design the ideal international student attending Bates, you couldn’t do better than this applicant from China, and it’s little surprise that Jared Rivers, senior associate dean of admission and director of diversity enrollment, tallied a perfect 10–0–0 result after calling for a vote.

In an admission interview, the candidate revealed himself to be charismatic, outdoorsy — and “excited about thesis and Puddle Jump.” Academically stellar, the applicant, who collects paper money, wrote a book about the significance of the images on money.

(What do the committee vote tallies mean? Ten committee members voted to admit, none to put the applicant on the wait list, and none to deny.)

“He is aware of how fortunate and privileged he is.”

A teacher’s recommendation includes that comment, as well as a note that the student is eager not to “come across as arrogant or uncaring, of which he is neither.”

Weisenburger talks with the committee about students’ ability to be self-aware of their socioeconomic status at this age. Many have never experienced life outside their own family reality. “It’s all they know.” Her point? While being self-aware of one’s privilege is a mark of a liberally educated person, not all 18-year-olds are there yet.

“And he has been in touch with Coach.”

The committee considers an accomplished football player with solid grades and a demonstrated work ethic from a respected Florida high school.

While the trend in recent years at many colleges is for varsity-caliber students to apply Early Decision, quality athletes are part of the Regular Decision pool, too.

This student’s candidacy draws a key question from the committee: Would he really leave his football-crazy home state for Maine?

“It’s incredibly difficult to attract kids away from a good state flagship like the University of Florida,” says one dean. On the other hand, he took the step to be interviewed by a Bates alum in Florida, who took away a very good impression of the young man.

“And he has been in touch with Coach,” says another dean. With some hope that this student might opt to be a Bobcat instead of a Gator, the committee votes to admit.

“There’s no late bus.”

The extracurricular activities of one candidate are thin. But a dean, showing the committee’s mastery of uncovering details affecting a candidate’s circumstances, notes that the student’s school doesn’t offer sports or an after-school activities bus.

Furthermore, the candidate’s parent has an illness requiring the student to come home immediately after school.

Meanwhile, the student’s recommendations bolster his application. He’s “curious, intelligent, inquisitive, skillful, and compassionate,” and his interest in improv and debate “will translate well to Bates,” the committee notes. The committee votes to admit.

“I’m just here for the free coffee.”

Sarah Emerson Potter ’77 draws a laugh with this line as she arrives to observe one session. Potter, who recently retired as the college store manager, has a vast and firm understanding of Bates, and she was one of several adjunct application readers this year.

While the sessions have a certain mystique and are filled with jargon that is captivatingly opaque, like that of air traffic controllers or recording engineers, Weisenburger has been intentional about opening the process up, when possible, to campus partners and to outsiders with a vested interest.

“It’s a great learning moment,” she explains, “and an opportunity to see inside a process that touches the college in so many ways.”

This year, Weisenburger invited several college counselors who work specifically with first-generation students and/or students from underserved or underrepresented backgrounds.

Their visit provided “a chance to broaden our own outreach efforts,” she says. “It helps our team and the counselors both because we’re able to exchange ideas about how an application is reviewed in the context of how it is prepared.”

“It took me 10 minutes to get down the stairs.”

The deans often know about an applicant’s high school through school visits the prior fall, and this dean’s quip was about his visit to a huge public high school of 2,800 students — 1,000 more than Bates’ enrollment.

Besides the chance to meet students and their counselors, school visits also provide deans and counselors with clearer understanding of a student’s environment — their community and culture.

“Context is everything,” Weisenburger says.

“This is exactly what we want to see. The funnel.”

In the courtship between applicant and college, both are suitors. Students pursue colleges. A college then selects students. And then, in the spring, students who’ve been accepted to multiple schools get a chance to select a college.

This courtship is also called “the funnel” because while many thousands of students will indicate interest in receiving Bates information early in the process, the number of students in each new class will be about 500.

The “admission funnel” in action: prospective students follow a Bates Admission tour guide. The term “funnel” describes the key steps that prospective students take, often including a campus tour, from their first inquiry to submission of an application. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

This dean’s comment was about a student whose record of contact with Bates, from initial inquiry, to attending an Open House and being interviewed in the fall, to her applying, tells the committee that she’s likely to matriculate if admitted.

The personal interview remains a linchpin of the funnel. Of the regular decision pool, 707 students were interviewed on campus at Lindholm House and another 861 off campus. That’s 30 percent of the pool.

“Quite possibly the most effort I’ve ever seen on ‘Why Bates.’”

Reviewing an outstanding student’s application — English is her sixth language, she has a 4.23 weighted GPA, and was called the “most extraordinary student” in one counselor’s 18 years — a dean shares this observation.

“Why Bates” is shorthand for the Bates-focused question on the Bates Supplement to the Common Application: “What draws you to Bates?”

It’s the key opportunity for applicants to speak directly to their interest in the college. To help them along, they’re given the Mission Statement and encouraged to pull inspiration from it.

Again, the goal is to tease out a student’s genuine interest in Bates.

“Do we have a chance at yielding her?”

During a discussion of another applicant, one who will be admitted with outstanding credentials — “perfect student, every teacher’s dream,” according to one recommendation — Weisenburger asks whether there’s evidence that she would matriculate.

There’s not much to suggest she would or wouldn’t, so the committee gives the candidate an “R flag,” indicating that her choosing Bates might benefit from some recruiting, specifically contact from a Bates professor in her intended academic field.

“Only female on the wrestling team”

The odd or quirky item in an applicant’s file will catch the eye of the committee, especially if it demonstrates that the student is authentic.

One student, from a private boarding school, posted solid but unspectacular grades. Her extracurriculars, however, included being an accomplished debater, always a good thing when applying to Bates, and being the only female on the boys’ varsity wrestling team.

“I love that. That’s cool,” says one of the deans.

“This poor kid”

Some mistakes are too big to overcome. One applicant’s “disastrous” 11th grade —“too many Cs and an F” — make this candidate a long shot even with a strong counselor recommendation that spoke of an “academic rebirth” during his senior year.

On this day, his grades, coupled with a suspension for “academic dishonesty,” seal his fate, and the committee votes to deny.

“He’s doing well senior year?”

After hearing strong qualifications for another candidate, Interim Director of Admission Johie Farrar Seltzer ’03 asks this question. It’s true: By slacking off in senior year, a candidate can hurt their chances for admission. This student had kept up his grades.

“I suspect it might lack in authenticity.”

One candidate’s application seems to offer lots of positives in academics, sports, and music, but a dean feels that the tone of her personal essay is uneven and, specifically, seems at odds with her record of volunteerism.

In fact, the candidate’s essay seems self-serving: a description of how she lost a school election, and it draws this reaction from a dean, “Yikes,” along with an observation that the candidate’s volunteer service may not reflect an altruistic impulse. “This essay gave me a bad impression on her fit with Bates.”

The committee votes to deny.

“Alone.”

The committee considers the personal backstories of applicants, and weighs both how those affect a student’s academic record, as reflected in their GPA, and how their response to their personal circumstances might enrich the Bates community.

This student’s application notes that one parent died a year ago, and that the other parent is not present.

He attends an uber-competitive boys school and his transcript is far from A’s and B’s. Yet the way in which he persevered through a potentially devastating personal crisis speaks volumes about who he is, the admission committee believes.

“The unevenness [in his grades] may even out in college,” says a member of the committee. “He’s more motivated than almost everyone.” They vote to admit.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2016/04/08/inside-admission-decisions-2020/feed/1College close to home meant best of both worlds for five local Bates graduateshttp://www.bates.edu/news/2015/05/28/college-close-to-home-meant-best-of-both-worlds-for-five-local-bates-graduates/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2015/05/28/college-close-to-home-meant-best-of-both-worlds-for-five-local-bates-graduates/#commentsThu, 28 May 2015 20:04:07 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=94877Five seniors from Lewiston-Auburn chose Bates for familiar reasons: distinctive community, generous financial aid, and a rigorous liberal arts education.]]>

Seniors, left to right, Naima Qambi, Asha Mohamud, Allaina Murphy, Mekae Hyde and Alex Parker will graduate from Bates College on May 31. All five came to Bates from Lewiston-Auburn high schools. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

The Class of 2015 counts members from as far away as Arkansas and Zimbabwe, but this year’s graduates also include five young men and women who attended Edward Little High School, Lewiston High School, and Saint Dominic Academy – the largest number of Lewiston-Auburn students in any graduating class in recent memory.

It’s not unusual for young people to want to put some distance between where they grew up and where they go to college. In Maine, researchers have noted that approximately half of the state’s college-bound high schoolers opt for an out-of-state college. So why then did these five standout students choose Bates when they had their pick of colleges and universities elsewhere?

Their reasons resemble those you hear from students from all over the country and the world who choose Bates: our unique sense of community, generous financial aid, and a rigorous liberal arts education, for example.

But there were other reasons too, such as a desire to continue an athletic career or the security of having a built-in support system of local friends and family.

The five seniors as they were as first year students in September 2011. ‪(Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Asha Mohamud said the opportunities Bates offers rival those of much bigger colleges, which made choosing to go school close to home that much easier. Mohamud attended Lewiston public schools and so she knew from her years of interactions with Bates student tutors that the college attracts young people with traits and ideals that appeal to her.

“I had Bates mentors throughout elementary school who embodied all the essential elements of Bates,” said Mohamud, a biology major and graduate of Lewiston High School. “Their commitment to service as well as pursuing work that served the Lewiston community was touching. Their influence in my life contributed to me wanting to go to Bates.”

Leigh Weisenburger, the college’s dean of admission and financial aid, is leading the college’s more focused outreach and recruitment at local high schools, exposing more Lewiston-Auburn and Maine students to the liberal arts and the diverse opportunities that await them close to home. Next September, for example, Bates is sponsoring a Lewiston High School aspirations coordinator’s travel to and participation in a national conference on college admission and counseling.

Click to enlarge.

“Our hometown is of great importance to us, and we always try to have a steady representation from our Lewiston and Auburn communities,” Weisenburger said. “It’s exceptional that we have in the Class of 2015 five graduates who represent all three of our local high schools.”

In addition to the five local seniors, there are about a dozen other Lewiston and Auburn natives enrolled at Bates. They are among the more than 175 Maine students attending the college, roughly 10 percent of the student body. Collectively, the Maine students receive more than $5 million in financial aid, scholarships, and grants from the college.

“Local students get the best of both worlds and it would be imprudent to pass up such a great experience simply because the college is located in Lewiston.”

Alex Parker, a Lewiston native and St. Dom’s graduate, chose Bates because the college offered him the chance to continue playing baseball while pursuing a liberal arts education. Financial aid was also a big factor, he said.

“Bates has so much to offer — a diverse curriculum with amazing professors, a strong school culture of inclusiveness, pride, and supporting each other, a beautiful campus and a great dining hall, and an athletics program that has grown each year I have been here,” said Parker, a politics major and All-Academic NESCAC honoree in baseball.

“However, the people you will meet at Bates are the number one reason to consider Bates. I love attending a school with a diverse student body so that I could meet people from all over the U.S. and the world.”

Allania Murphy said she too found the college’s diversity inspiring and educational in ways she did not anticipate.

“Becoming friends with kids from all around the world and from all different cultural, religious, racial, and socio-economic identities and backgrounds has opened my eyes to so much that I never realized or was exposed to growing up in the Lewiston community,” said Murphy, who graduated from St. Dom’s in Lewiston and played three years on the Bates women’s basketball team.

When Auburn’s Naima Qambi was considering colleges, she initially thought Bates was just too close to home. She changed her mind after participating in one of the college’s visit programs where first-generation college-goers spend several days and nights on campus experiencing everything Bates has to offer.

“Being from the community, it was important for me to give back,” said Qambi, an education major and member of the Bonner Leader Program, which engages students in community service, work, and learning during their four years at Bates. “Through the Bonner program, I worked with the Lewiston Public Library tutoring program, Tree Street Youth, and the Hillview Housing Complex.”

None of the local students graduating Sunday say they regret going to college so close to home. If anything, it enhanced their college experience and provided welcomed support systems.

“Some semesters I went home once a week, other semesters I did not go home at all,” Murphy said. “In my opinion, local students get the best of both worlds and it would be imprudent to pass up such a great experience simply because the college is located in Lewiston. Now as I get set to graduate, I feel prepared to enter the workforce or go to grad school because of my Bates education.”

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2015/05/28/college-close-to-home-meant-best-of-both-worlds-for-five-local-bates-graduates/feed/2Students admitted to the Class of 2019 are the academically strongest, most diverse in Bates historyhttp://www.bates.edu/news/2015/04/03/students-admitted-to-the-class-of-2019-are-the-academically-strongest-most-diverse-in-bates-history-3/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2015/04/03/students-admitted-to-the-class-of-2019-are-the-academically-strongest-most-diverse-in-bates-history-3/#commentsFri, 03 Apr 2015 15:44:03 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=93572Bates College extended offers of admission to 1,208 students for the Class...]]>

Prospective students and families take a summer campus tour. From a record number of applications to the Class of 2019, Bates extended offers of admission to the strongest, most diverse cohort in the college’s history. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Among those offered admission, there are upward trends nearly across the board: More students of color, more first-generation college-goers, more in the top 10 percent of their high school class and (for those who submitted them) an average SAT score 21 points higher than last year.

And, they’re from everywhere: all 50 states and 43 countries are represented in this year’s group of admitted students.

The Class of 2019 had an overall admit rate of 21.4 percent, the lowest in the college’s history. The college received a record 5,636 applications, a 12-percent increase over last year.

During an on-campus Admitted Student Reception on April 10, 2015, Professor of Physics (and guitarist) John Smedley works with two prospective Class of 2019 students in the “Musical Waves and Spectra” master class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

For Regular Decision, the college offered admission to 17.8 percent of applicants, also a record low.

Of the 932 students offered admission during Regular Decision:

37 percent are students of color (domestic and international)

13 percent are the first in their families to go to college

81 percent will graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, for those students reporting an official class rank

Bates has accomplished this without changing its application process. “Our results speak to the college’s increased standing among high-achieving students,” said Leigh Weisenburger, the college’s dean of admission and financial aid.

Over the last several years, Bates has significantly expanded and improved its outreach through strategic and concerted efforts to enhance the college’s national and global presence. This year Bates admissions staff flew nearly 250,000 miles en route to visiting 1,166 high schools and community-based organizations that work with college-bound youth.

President Clayton Spencer welcomes prospective Class of 2019 students and families to the on-campus Admitted Student Reception on April 10, 2015. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

More than 180 high school students participated in one of the college’s three “fly in” programs which covers the cost of travel for qualifying applicants so that they can visit campus and stay overnight with a student host.

The college has also stepped up its recruitment of international students, with staff spending a combined 13 weeks abroad in Asia, Canada, Europe, and Latin America. These efforts yielded more than 1,000 international applicants.

“Bates has long been recognized as one of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges, and we are seeing growing interest from students in regions where we have increased our recruitment such as California, Florida, and Texas,” Weisenburger said.

The college also dedicated more resources to financial aid so that qualified students will be able to enroll. Bates budgeted $8.6 million for aid for the Class of 2019, nearly 8 percent more than last year.

“This commitment to making Bates affordable directly links to the college’s mission and allows the institution to meet 100 percent of students’ demonstrated financial need,” Weisenburger said

Throughout the month of April, the college will host on- and off-campus receptions for admitted students and families so they can meet faculty, current students and alumni and learn more about the Bates experience. Admitted students have until May 1 to accept their offer of admission.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2015/04/03/students-admitted-to-the-class-of-2019-are-the-academically-strongest-most-diverse-in-bates-history-3/feed/4NPR reports on ‘first-of-its-kind’ national study by Hiss ’66 challenging the value of standardized testshttp://www.bates.edu/news/2014/02/18/npr-standardized-test-hiss-report/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2014/02/18/npr-standardized-test-hiss-report/#commentsTue, 18 Feb 2014 17:25:56 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=71660The study, says NPR, questions the predictive value of standardized tests and argues that they narrow the door of college opportunity.]]>

What was deemed a “bold step” by the Bates faculty in 1984 — their vote to make standardized tests optional for admission — has become a national march 30 years later.

NPR’s Morning Edition reports on a new study of 33 U.S. colleges and universities that yields more evidence to support what Bates instinctively knew back in 1984: that standardized tests do not accurately predict college success. And at their worst, NPR reports, standardized tests can narrow the door of college opportunity when America needs to give students more access to higher education, not less.

The study’s principal investigator is Bill Hiss ’66, former Bates dean of admission and now retired from the college. Valerie Wilson Franks ’98 is the study’s co-author and lead investigator.

Hiss tells NPR’s Eric Westervelt that “this study will be a first step in examining what happens when you admit tens of thousands of students without looking at their SAT scores.”

What happens, Hiss says, is that if students “have good high school grades, they are almost certainly going to be fine” in college, “despite modest or low testing.”

Dean of Admission Leigh Weisenburger: Your high school transcript “is a much bigger story” than standardized test scores:

In terms of college access nationally, the authors pose a rhetorical question, asking whether “standardized testing produces valuable predictive results, or does it artificially truncate the pools of applicants who would succeed if they could be encouraged to apply?”

The answer “is far more the latter.”

Specifically, requiring standardized tests for college admission can narrow the door of college opportunity for otherwise capable students who choose submit test scores: “low-income and minority students, as well as more young people who will be the first generation in their family to attend,” reports Westervelt.

The recent study, “Defining Promise: Optional Standardized Testing Policies in American College and University Admissions,” looked at 123,000 student and alumni records at 33 private and public colleges. Submitter GPAs were .05 of a GPA point higher than non-submitters’, and submitter graduation rates were 0.6 percent higher than non-submitters’.

“By any standard, these are trivial differences,” write Hiss and Franks.

Roughly 3,000 four-year U.S. colleges and universities make SAT or ACT submissions optional.

“Prior to this 30-year study, Bates had done its own research, tracking the performance of submitters and non-submitters,” she explains. “Students who submit scores at the point of application and those who do not perform almost precisely the same at Bates.”

“We know that the best predictor of college success is the high school transcript,” she says.

Reciting a sentence that she says is practically a “Bates bumper sticker,” Weisenberg says that “while standardized tests are useful, we have found that three and a half years on a transcript will tell us much more about a student’s potential than three and a half hours on a Saturday morning.”

Annually, approximately 40 percent of Bates applicants do not submit any standardized test scores.

Standardized tests were sometimes “unhelpful, misleading and unpredictive for students in whom Bates has always been interested.”

When the Bates faculty voted to make test scores optional on Oct. 1, 1984 — with Hiss as admission dean — then-President Hedley Reynolds said that action was “a bold step by the faculty, reflecting deep concerns with the effectiveness of the SATs.” (Bates became test optional in 1984 by no longer requiring SAT I. In 1990 all standardized testing became optional.)

A 1990 Bates Magazine story reviewing why Bates made the change noted that standardized testing by the 1980s was producing a kind of “mass hysteria” among high school students and their parents, “an unholy amalgam of passive surrender and frantic coaching for the test.”

It was also “a growing sense” that SATs were sometimes “unhelpful, misleading and unpredictive for students in whom Bates has always been interested,” including students of color, rural and Maine students, and first-generation-to-college students.

In 1984, the Faculty Committee on Admission and Financial Aid offered three reasons for recommending the policy change

1. SATs were an inaccurate indicator of potential.

2. Prospective applicants were using median test scores published in guidebooks as a major factor in deciding whether or not to apply to Bates. “The faculty realized that Bates should be seen first-hand,” said a story in the January 1985 issue of Bates Magazine. “Numbers cannot describe the tenor of a campus which has never had fraternities or sororities, a campus where students are respected as individuals.”

3. The relationship of family income to SAT success “worried the committee and conflicted with the mission of the college.” Noting the rise in SAT prep courses, the college worried that if coaching was successful, “it means that students with economic resources will enjoy undeserved advantages in admissions evaluations.”

In fact, the story said that Bates had studied the relationship of SATs to academic success for the prior five years, concluding that “the quality of the high school preparation (rigor of courses included) was consistently the best measure of the student’s potential at Bates.”

We asked the Bates admission team what advice they might have, both for seniors right now and for younger students just beginning their college search.

The number one piece of advice comes from the dean herself, Leigh Weisenberger.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenberger

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger.

The college application is your opportunity to tell us about what you truly enjoy doing, what inspires you and what holds meaning for you.

It is not a sin to fail, said Benjamin Mays ’25, the revered civil rights leader and Bates graduate. But aiming low is.

In all your efforts, show us that you can aim high.

The academic work you do in high school, the initiative you take, is what will set you apart. Showing us that you can take the extra step in your coursework is the first thing any college admission team will notice.

Director of Admission Scott Steinberg ’86

Director of Admission Scott Steinberg ’86

Choose your college carefully, and be mindful of what it stands for.

In the best sense, going to college isn’t a transactional relationship, it’s a transformational one. You’re not just choosing a place to study for four years. You’re choosing an association of people — students, faculty, staff, and alumni — with whom you’ll study, play, network, socialize, work, and grow for many, many years to come.

Director of Student Financial Services Wendy Glass

Director of Student Financial Services Wendy Glass

Once you’ve submitted your application, it’s easy to settle back into your high school routine and forget about your financial-aid application — especially since aid deadlines are often later than admission deadlines.

So, just as you’ve focused on application deadlines all fall, now be mindful of financial-aid deadlines. Note them on your calendar at home, and on your computer or smartphone.

Communicate with your parents so you can together create a schedule that gives you enough time to gather information and submit the required forms on time.

Associate Dean of Admission Jared Rivers

Associate Dean of Admission Jared Rivers

Try your best to remain true to yourself throughout the college search process without placing too much value in what your friends say.

That should help you find the best college match based on your interests and things that are important to you.

Associate Dean of Admission Johie Seltzer ’03

Associate Dean of Admission Johie Farrar Seltzer ’03

Don’t forget to be a senior. You have worked hard to get to this point in your high school career. Make sure that you are taking time to enjoy that.

This year isn’t all about your college search, it’s also about savoring your final year in high school.

Admission Counselor Noah Jenkins

Admission Counselor Noah Jenkins

Bates students are intelligent, active, multifaceted people and a good application calls attention to the student’s individual talents and passions. Students that thrive here are ones that enrich campus with their individuality.

Admission Counselor Katy Nowiszewski

Admission Counselor Katy Nowiszewski

The smartest way to get to know a college is by talking to its students and alumni. Bates interviews are conversations that can help you understand this place best — and help you decide if you are a Bobcat at heart.

Associate Dean of Admission LK Gagnon ’88

Associate Dean of Admission LK Gagnon ’88

Just be yourself. We want to know who you are, not who you think we want you to be.

Although, Judy Garland said it way better: “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”

Admission Counselor Freddi Dupre

Admission Counselor Freddi Dupre

My piece of advice is a simple one: stay sane.

It can be easy to get caught up with all the chatter that goes on in school during the fall of senior year — it seems like who’s applying where and when is the only topic of conversation.

Remind yourself to turn down that noise and remember that this is a process that is all about you: who you are, who you want to be, and where you want to be. Applying to college can be stressful, but ignoring the hype will make it easier.

Assistant Dean of Admission Mai Hinton

Assistant Dean of Admission Mai Hinton

It’s all about fit. Find the best college for you!

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/12/11/advice-bates-admission-deadline-january-1/feed/0As deadlines near, 18 application tips for prospective members of the Class of 2018http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/11/08/18-application-tips-prospective-class-of-2018/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/11/08/18-application-tips-prospective-class-of-2018/#respondFri, 08 Nov 2013 19:13:28 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=70012With application deadlines looming, the Bates Admission team ponies up 18 tips for prospective members of the Class of 2018.]]>

With the approach of application deadlines at Bates and many other colleges, the Bates Admission team ponies up 18 tips for prospective members of the Class of 2018.

1. Identify your growth

Your goal in applying to Bates should be, among other things, to show how and/or why your most important activities (perhaps an AP physics project, a team captaincy, or a community project) have changed you. Our staff at Bates wants to know what you have learned from your experiences, not just what you have done.

2. Share your history

View the admission forms as the place to chronicle your family background, school history, activities, work experiences, and other autobiographical information. Be clear and concise and use specific detail.

3. Realize that 7.2 billion people live on this planet

Your courses and grades are not you. Use the subjective questions and the essay to describe your character and experience in ways that create a distinct person that an admission staff can come to know.

4. Articulate your inspiration

Tell us about what you truly enjoy doing, what inspires you, and what holds meaning for you. As the revered civil rights leader and Bates graduate Benjamin Mays ’25 said, “It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.”

5. Put effort into all your writing

The short answers matter too! While your college essay is being combed over by everyone you know, ask them also to take a look at your short responses and supplemental essays. Since there are very few places on the Common Application to express your writing, which in turn expresses your thinking skills, the Bates staff looks at all your writing to see if there is consistency in your voice and writing style.

6. Don’t oversell yourself

Additional letters of recommendation can be helpful if you feel there is a part of your life underrepresented by the standard application, but resist believing that more is better. The Bates Admission staff works very hard just to get through their required information. Expecting them to read five additional letters of recommendation can end up hurting more than helping. And some schools will not accept additional information.

7. Take full advantage of the essay

The personal statement, along with any supplemental essays, allows you to showcase who you are. The five Common Application prompts leave the range of topics wide open. The word count is small, so narrow your scope and aim for the heart of the story you want to tell.

8. Talk about it

In every step of the college search, communication between you and your family is vitally important. Beginning with expectations and ending with the decision, every component involves a great deal of prioritizing and decision making. The easiest way to get through the stressful times is honest communication.

9. Be yourself

In all your communications with your colleges, provide a window into your values and experiences. You know yourself best, so be honest.

10. Proofread your work!

We want to experience the depth, creativity and clarity of your ideas unencumbered by misspellings and grammatical errors.

11. Stay focused

When asked to write an essay, do not submit a research paper. Write an essay with meaning, and tell us something about yourself that helps admission officers envision you as a member of your campus community.

12. Grab our attention

In your essay, start with a great opener that catches the reader’s attention immediately. Make the admission officer want to continue reading more about you.

13. Include details

Use action words that make your essay come alive. Paint a picture that will hold the reader’s attention.

14. Be original

We’ve seen plagiarized essays before, as well as the work of a parent, teacher or essay-writing professional. Don’t make that mistake.

15. Keep it simple

In your writing, avoid vocabulary that tries to sound overly sophisticated. Admission officers are not impressed by the overuse of long vocabulary words found in thesauruses. Find and use your own voice to tell your story.

16. Get feedback

Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Do not allow another to rewrite your essay, but edits and opinions from someone else are usually helpful.

17. You do have control

In the case of applying to Bates, you will be one of about 5,200 applicants, so the process is beyond your control in some ways. But in other ways, you have control. You control your writing, who you choose to write your recommendations and, by spring, which colleges you choose among the ones that accept your application.

18. Don’t stress out!

Whether it’s writing the essay or completing the application process as a whole, time spent reflecting on and communicating your experience can be valuable and positive. Bring that positive attitude to the process, and believe that most admission officers will enjoy reading your story.

Additional reporting by Hallie Balcomb ’14.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/11/08/18-application-tips-prospective-class-of-2018/feed/0Bates welcomes the high-achieving, highly diverse Class of 2017http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/08/29/bates-welcomes-class-of-2017/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/08/29/bates-welcomes-class-of-2017/#commentsThu, 29 Aug 2013 15:54:49 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=68078Bates' Convocation, on Sept. 3, marks the opening of the school year and the formal entry of the 502 members of the Class of 2017.]]>

Students line up for last year’s procession to Convocation, the formal opening of the school year. The Class of 2017 will become the latest entering class to participate in the tradition. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Bates will open the school year on Tuesday, Sept. 3, with its annual Convocation ceremony, formally welcoming the 502 members of the Class of 2017 — one of the most academically distinguished classes in the college’s history, and the most diverse ever.

The event, which will be livestreamed, begins at 4:15 p.m. on the Historic Quad, at Campus Avenue and College Street. Rain site is Alumni Gymnasium, 130 Central Ave.

Convocation activities open with the traditional colorful procession to the venue by faculty members and administrators in academic regalia along with students, to music provided by the Portland Brass Quintet.

Clayton Spencer, who last year became the eighth president of Bates, will open the ceremony with a welcome. Later she will also deliver the Convocation address, “Some Thoughts on Work.” The address will introduce the Class of 2017 to a question that has emerged as part of Spencer’s agenda for the institution: Can we do a better job to ensure that a Bates liberal arts education equips students with the tools they need to live and work, with passion and purpose, in today’s world?

Brent Talbott, a senior who is president of the Bates College Student Government, and Matthew R. Auer, the college’s new vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, will each deliver greetings. Emily Wright-Magoon, acting multifaith chaplain, will deliver the benediction that closes the ceremony.

The Bates Class of 2017, by the numbers

The Bates Office of Admission received a record 5,243 applications for the class — topping the previous record, set in 2011, by 47 — and offered admission to 1,267 of the applicants, for an admittance rate of 24.2 percent, the most selective in college history. Those who will enter represent a record “yield” rate of 39.6 percent, which colleges and universities consider very high.

Leigh Weisenburger, dean of admission and financial aid, said, “These figures reflect the constant appeal of Bates’ innovative, rigorous liberal arts curriculum, as well as our orientations to inclusiveness and civic service, for intellectually curious and deeply engaged students. We’re thrilled to have an entering class that will so strongly reinforce these values.”

Bates was founded in 1855 to offer higher education to women and students of color as well as men — a rarity at that time. It has never had fraternities or sororities, and all student organizations are open to all students. Each year at least a third of Bates students take community-engaged learning courses that integrate community projects with academic learning through the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

The class comprises 271 men and 231 women.

Fifty-eight percent of the class comes from public high schools, the rest from independent high schools. Their average grade-point achievement over the course of their high school careers was 3.8, on a scale of four.

The class is the most ethnically diverse in the institution’s history, with U.S. students of color (African American, Asian American, Hispanic, Multiracial or Native American/Pacific Islander) comprising 25.5 percent of the group.

Fourteen percent of the class are the first members of their families to attend college. Approximately 10 percent have a relative who attended Bates, a category known as “legacies.”

Geographically, the class comes from 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as well as 25 other countries, in these proportions:

Mid-Atlantic states, 22.1 percent

Midwest, 8 percent

New England, 43 percent (47 students from Maine, including six from Lewiston and Auburn)

Southeast, 5.4 percent

Southwest and West, 14.1 percent

International, 7.4 percent.

Financial aid figures for the entering class reflect Bates’ traditional welcome to students of all family income levels. The college meets 100 percent of calculated financial aid need for all matriculants who have such need, for four years.

A record 48 percent of the class will receive need-based financial aid, with aid packages averaging $41,917 — including $38,387 in the form of Bates grant aid that does not have to be repaid. Grants from Bates keep the portion of financial aid provided by work and/or loans to approximately $3,530 per year.

Bates’ “single fee” for 2013-14 — which includes tuition, fees and room and board — is $58,950, but the college’s generous financial aid substantially reduces the average net price for aid recipients. The current White House “College Scorecard” lists an average net price for Bates of $21,402.

On average, 40 percent of Bates students graduate with federal loan debt, and they carry an average of $17,070 in loans, compared to the national average of more than $26,000.

“Whatever Bill sets his hand to, whatever he feels called to address, he engages fully with his full heart, mind and energy.”

At the Jan. 18 retirement reception in his honor, Bill Hiss ’66 acknowledges applause for his contributions to Bates. At left are his wife, Colleen Quint ’85, and daughter, Jessie. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Those words, crafted by Marcus Bruce ’77, the Benjamin Mays Professor of Religious Studies, sum up the character of service that Bill Hiss ’66 gave to Bates in the 34 years since his appointment as dean of admission in 1978.

Hiss, honored at a Jan. 18 reception in Perry Atrium, retired at the end of 2012.

Besides Bruce’s remarks (delivered by Admission staffer Uriel Gonzales ’11, as Bruce was at a conference in Paris on “Black Portraiture in the West”), speakers included Wylie Mitchell, who succeeded Hiss as dean and retired from Bates in 2011, Bates Magazine editor Jay Burns, who shared comments by former Bates Communications director Patti Lawson, Advancement Vice President Sarah Pearson ’75 and President Clayton Spencer.

Spencer praised Hiss especially for his work on Bates’ optional-SAT policy that propelled the college into the national admissions spotlight. As a forceful and articulate critic of standardized testing, proving that it is not a reliable predictor of student potential, Hiss linked the college’s tradition of opportunity and excellence with the goals of the Bates optional-testing policy.

Later, Hiss led an array of college programs as vice president (and, recently, taught the first-year seminar “Literature through Cataclysm” as a lecturer in Asian Studies). He was also the unofficial college historian, a contemporary Harry Rowe.

Speaking from the alumni perspective, Pearson picked up on Bruce’s theme of Bates being a near-religious calling for Hiss, who is a preacher himself.

She said that “alumni want to know that the college is being loved and well-cared for, the way we loved it as students. We’re happy to know that we have leaders like Bill who take such good care of the precious resource we know Bates is.”

The Portland Press Herald and Maine Public Broadcasting check in with Bates officials for their reactions to the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges have all signed a brief supporting the University of Texas and the use of race-conscious admissions.

“This particular case can have repercussions about how we think about faculty and staff diversity and student diversity,” Heather Lindkvist, special assistant to the president for diversity and inclusion and member of the anthropology faculty, tells thePress Herald.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger tells Maine Public Broadcasting that because “we were founded by abolitionists…one of our number one goals since the very start, and we’re talking back to 1855 here, has been to be open and accessible to all.”

Using race as one part of the admission equation “is not just for the good of our own institutions,” she said, but to ensure that “we are creating a truly global classroom setting, a truly global community, so that as we prepare our students to be those leaders and go out into the world, that we can promise them, promise their families, that they’ve truly had a diversified learning environment.”